A new independent Commission to regulate and police the aged care industry has been announced by the Minister for Aged Care, Ken Wyatt.
Mr Wyatt said the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission would bring together the functions of the Australian Aged Care Quality Agency, the Aged Care Complaints Commissioner and the Department of Health’s aged care regulatory functions. It would be up and running by 1 January 2019.
He said the Commission would handle aged care regulation, compliance and complaints, increasing transparency through a publicly available rating against quality standards.
Mr Wyatt said the establishment of the Commission was in response to the review into failures at South Australian’s Oakden Older Persons’ Mental Health Service which found the current aged care regulatory framework was fragmented and did not adequately provide the assurance the community expected.
“The unified new Commission will be a responsive, one-stop shop to prevent failures, highlight quality concerns and have them quickly rectified,” Mr Wyatt said.
“Importantly, the new Commission will give senior Australians and their loved ones a single point of contact when they need help in dealing with claims of sub-standard care.”
He said a new Chief Clinical Advisor would be appointed to provide advice to the Commission, particularly on complex clinical matters.
The Minister said that other reforms would include a Serious Incident Response Scheme to ensure the right systems were in place to identify an incident and prevent it from occurring again, and a user-friendly provider comparison tool on the My Aged Care website.
